I like this post and think it’s good for people to stop and consider these things before blindly moving to the bay. That said, I feel like I should add my anecdatum: having moved from NYC to Berkeley and been heavily involved in the rationalist communities of both places, I am getting a lot more of (the magical thing that drew me in when I went to my first in-person rationalist events) over in the bay. It was an incredibly good decision for my social life, and I’m thriving here in a way I didn’t manage in any other city.
Note however that I think there’s a good bit of variation in outcomes here (+1 to @Raemon’s comment); I lucked out having a pretty easy time enmeshing myself in the local scene, but I’ve heard that some people who didn’t arrive through a Professional Track took years to really find a good social environment.
Also the wins here depend on your level of extroversion. I have unbounded appetite for hanging out with rationalist/EA friends that I like, and so I thrive in a place where I can do that with basically all my non-work waking hours. But if a weekly meetup and a couple Lighthaven festivals per year saturate your demand for this kind of thing, you have a lot of options besides the Bay.
2019 ECRM was still among the best and most life-changing weekends I’ve had, though. Strong recommend.
Today in Boston Meetup News I tried to schedule a rationalist board game meetup, and realized I accidentally double scheduled with another event. The problem was
Saturday had a housewarming and another board game meetup
Sunday had two adjacent dinners
Monday had an adjacent meetup and also I wanted to hang out with some rationalists visiting from out of town
Tuesday afaik has nothing going on, I should have scheduled it here
Wednesday had a meetup for a subgroup, I forgot about that and scheduled the board games here (But we’ve been doing board games weekly on Wednesdays)
Thursday has an adjacent meetup
Friday is the start of a LARP
I am not going to claim that Boston matches the Californian Bay for volume of rationalist/EA events, but I do believe I could hang out with half a dozen to a couple dozen folks of this sort every night of the week here if I wanted.
I like this post and think it’s good for people to stop and consider these things before blindly moving to the bay. That said, I feel like I should add my anecdatum: having moved from NYC to Berkeley and been heavily involved in the rationalist communities of both places, I am getting a lot more of (the magical thing that drew me in when I went to my first in-person rationalist events) over in the bay. It was an incredibly good decision for my social life, and I’m thriving here in a way I didn’t manage in any other city.
Note however that I think there’s a good bit of variation in outcomes here (+1 to @Raemon’s comment); I lucked out having a pretty easy time enmeshing myself in the local scene, but I’ve heard that some people who didn’t arrive through a Professional Track took years to really find a good social environment.
Also the wins here depend on your level of extroversion. I have unbounded appetite for hanging out with rationalist/EA friends that I like, and so I thrive in a place where I can do that with basically all my non-work waking hours. But if a weekly meetup and a couple Lighthaven festivals per year saturate your demand for this kind of thing, you have a lot of options besides the Bay.
2019 ECRM was still among the best and most life-changing weekends I’ve had, though. Strong recommend.
Today in Boston Meetup News I tried to schedule a rationalist board game meetup, and realized I accidentally double scheduled with another event. The problem was
Saturday had a housewarming and another board game meetup
Sunday had two adjacent dinners
Monday had an adjacent meetup and also I wanted to hang out with some rationalists visiting from out of town
Tuesday afaik has nothing going on, I should have scheduled it here
Wednesday had a meetup for a subgroup, I forgot about that and scheduled the board games here (But we’ve been doing board games weekly on Wednesdays)
Thursday has an adjacent meetup
Friday is the start of a LARP
I am not going to claim that Boston matches the Californian Bay for volume of rationalist/EA events, but I do believe I could hang out with half a dozen to a couple dozen folks of this sort every night of the week here if I wanted.